


Circumnavigation

by Renne



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Skids is Jealous, Love Confessions, M/M, Plug and Play, Post-Dark Cybertron, Skids's Amnesia Trope, Tactile, Unrequited Love, canon-typical idiocy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:12:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Dark Cybertron coda. Skids wakes up in the Iacon Medical Facility after repairs with no idea where Getaway is. Despite repeated urgings from various medics to take care of himself, stupidity ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circumnavigation

**Author's Note:**

> Note: there are brief references to the following of my headcanons: Skids and Getaway sharing a hab suite, Getaway being physically tortured by Star Saber, Skids can't have too many painkilling drugs because historical undercover drugs bust reasons, and under his mask [Getaway has a face](http://dataglitch.tumblr.com/post/60583880266/weh-these-were-my-practice-getaway-sketches-before).
> 
> For [Ammay](http://jerkimusprime.tumblr.com/), who puts up with all my feelings about these two precious nerds, here is an unnecessarily self-indulgent fic that was only ever meant to be 500 words long.

Skids woke slowly and groggily from medical stasis, feeling the tingly ache of his self-repair working to incorporate the patching welded into his much abused abdomen. Should probably try not to make getting stabbed like that a thing, he thought. It wasn't fun the first time, and it definitely wasn't fun this time around either. He flailed around with his hand for a moment, looking for—nope, it was gone. He felt like he was missing something but couldn't figure out what.

None of his insides, anyway. "There's damage to your fuel tank and to a few lines, but it's a miracle Bludgeon didn't hit anything too important," First Aid had exclaimed when examining him before they'd put him under and Ratchet had let out a cynical laugh. Who knew what that was about. 

"All right, you're awake," said an unfamiliar mech with very slapdash medical livery and no berth-side manner. "Here, get this into you." He passed Skids a large cube of medical grade energon. "Make sure you don't do anything strenuous for the next few days to give your self-repair a chance to accept the patches and transmute the welds, and that includes no transforming. Once you've had that energon you'll be good to go."

The summary dismissal was a bit abrupt. "But I'm hurt—"

"Look," the mech said in a kinder tone, "you didn't have any major damage that we could find, so it'd be better for you to recuperate somewhere more comfortable. You're one of the _Lost Light_ crew, right? The ship is intact, we've been sending the crew back there to rest where it's quiet and clean. We really do need that berth."

"Oh." Well, that was fair enough, he guessed.

"You may experience periods of forgetfulness due to the neural block, but that should wear off in a few hours," the medic added. 

Skids snorted and chugged the energon, grimacing a bit at the mineral-laden, sharply medicinal taste. Forgetfulness. That was all he needed. Well, he had experience with that at least. 

He boosted himself off the berth and trotted towards the door, before stopping in his tracks. Oh slag, he'd remembered what—or who, rather—was he missing. He felt a stab of something that most definitely was _not_ fear at the thought that this particular time mightn't be the medic's 'forgetfulness'. "Hey." He turned back and grabbed the medics arm. The medic looked pointedly at Skids's hand and Skids released him hastily. "Sorry. Uh… hey, you seen another mech in here? About this tall," he gestured, "yellow facemask, mostly blue and white with some twee little pink highlights on his paintjob? Bit of red around the middle area? Probably said 'bomp'?" 

The medic looked at him blankly, shaking his head. "You've had no visitors," he said and shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."

That was weird, Getaway seemed to have some kind of sixth sense when it came to Skids getting damaged, like the time he popped up out of nowhere when Whirl accidentally ("accidentally") elbowed Skids in the head so hard it rattled his brain module, one night at Swerve's. 

Skids felt a sudden churning in his tanks that had zero to do with his injuries or the energon. This wasn't right. If Skids wasn't badly hurt then what if—what if Getaway was the one that was hurt—like _really_ hurt? What if he was badly hurt out there where he was left behind and no one knew? What if Soundwave had decided frag fighting the Ammonites and turned all Decepticon on him and torn him into stupid little pieces and Skids wouldn't hear him say 'bomp' in that stupid time with his stupid face mask and stupid knowing everything about Skids that Skids didn't know himself?!

It was about then that he figured he was getting unnecessarily wound up over the whole thing and that if he was being kicked out of the medibay then he might as well take the time to find his idiot friend, who had probably just been waylaid. And was not at all injured, lying in a ditch somewhere, hoping someone would turn up before he bled out— _stop_ , Skids told himself firmly. Stop.

"I dunno," Whirl said from where he was having one of his legs put back on when Skids posed the question to him. "You tried comming him? ...Haha. You didn't, did you." Not even a question. 

"Shut up," Skids muttered. Panic. He wasn't very good with panic. He vented a moment to steady himself and then pinged Getaway's personal comm. Best not to sound like he was two seconds away from hysteria. (He told himself that hysteria was a perfectly normal response after Shockwave and time drives and billions of Ammonites and duelling Metrotitans and whatever had happened to the sky. And once he punched Getaway—gently—in the face for worrying him, he'd have a nice long lay down like the medic suggested.)

His ping got no reply. 

When Skids opened a direct channel, the response was nothing but static and he looked accusingly at Whirl, who just shrugged. "Yeah, I'da thought they'd've fixed that by now too." Whirl gestured vaguely with his claw. "Oh well. Y'know, I think I last saw him near where Prowlestator—Devaprowl?—eh, whatever, wherever Prowl and his little pet Constructicons were beating on what's-his-name, the other big guy. There."

"Well that… that narrows it down. I guess." Skids rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Haha yeah, anyway, hope your buddy didn't get stomped, I liked him. With that 'bomp' thing he had goin' on, everyone should have a thing. Loved the way it gave you a twitch."

As Skids turned for the door, he told himself that Whirl was just high on whatever drugs the medic had given him and Getaway wouldn't really have gotten stomped because he was far smarter than that. He didn't run. He had more dignity than that. And he really didn't run.

"Don't mention it," Whirl shouted after him. "And don't thank me or anything, you ungrateful son of a glitch!"

Skids took a moment after he skidded to a halt outside the building to try and orientate himself. He could see, scorched into the metal over the doors a makeshift 'Iacon Medical Facility' sign. That... didn't really help. 

There was an orange and yellow mech sitting on a piece of rubble by the door, with a toolbox and a small, portable welder. By the looks of the small pieces of metal piled next to him he must have been performing field repairs on the mechs not injured enough to warrant immediate treatment from the stretched medical team inside. Orange and yellow looked at Skids strangely a moment and then: "Hey," he said. "Skids? Is that really you?"

Skids raised his hand, ready to wave the guy off because he really had places to go and idiots to find, when he took a proper look at the other mech. "Scoop?" he said, incredulous. "Holy slag, I haven't seen you since the Academy." Skids had been a true believer in Primus then, religion his refuge as much as the Academy. He'd shared lessons with Scoop and... and the Senator, finding comfort in religion and the philosophies they'd explored together. That had been a very long time ago. 

But Scoop was staring at Skids like he'd seen a ghost, or like it was yesterday. "We all thought you were dead."

"You know, it's funny, I've heard someone else say that recently. Listen, I—" 

"And I thought it was you for a moment when I saw with Bumblebee and Ultra Magnus, but you know… we thought you were dead," Scoop continued, oblivious. He suddenly lurched forward, grabbing Skids's arm, optics wide. "The prophecy, Skids, you remember the Senator telling us about it? About the titan and the chosen one? I know you read the whole Covenant of Primes back then. You know what I'm talking about." Scoop hesitated and Skids wanted to tell him to shut up, to not follow his train of thought to its logical conclusion, but he couldn't, he had to hear it said himself. "Do you think he knew? Do you think he had any idea, back when he taught us how to interpret the prophecy, of what was to come?"

Skids shook his head vehemently. "He couldn't have known. He was—everything was different back then. He couldn't have known what he would become."

"I hope not," Scoop whispered. 

"Listen," Skids repeated, "I'd love to stay and chat but a buddy of mine's missing, and I'm a bit worried." Jittery was equally as accurate. Thinking about Shockwave as the fulfilment of the prophecy was not helping in the slightest. "Last time I saw him he was—wait, he was agreeing with _you_ to stay behind! Getaway—do you know what happened to him? White and blue guy, yellow facemask... He was with you and Soundwave and the cassettes." 

Scoop wrapped his hand around the finger Skids hadn't even realised he'd jammed into the other mech's chest and gently pushed it down. Skids reclaimed his hand apologetically. "Yeah, I saw him—"

"Where?"

"If you'd let me finish," but Scoop didn't say it harshly, so Skids didn't feel bad. He was as kind as Skids remembered. "I last saw him near where the _Lost Light_ broke Monstructor apart, just before the femmes came in to mop up. I'll ping you the coordinates."

Skids couldn't help himself. "Was that a femme cleaning joke? Really?" he asked, but Scoop looked at him blankly. Slag, he was spent too much time with Whirl. "Sorry," he muttered. "Go on." Monstructor. That must be the other big guy Whirl had been talking about. Great. Two combiners to stomp Getaway into his component parts. 

Scoop shrugged apologetically. "That's all I remember." He winced, his hand going to an almighty ding in his helm that Skids hadn't noticed before. "Sorry. I got hit pretty hard after that. He seemed okay, though. A bit dinged up, but fighting a gazillion little super combiners will do that to you. I'm sure he'll be fine," he added earnestly. 

"I hope so," Skids muttered. It just... it wasn't normal for Getaway to not be there. In hardly any time since Getaway had been brought to the cell on Luna 1, chained and leashed and humiliated, they'd fallen into what Skids could only assume had to be their old ways. Or maybe not. Maybe this was new. He sometimes caught Getaway watching him quizzically, so maybe Skids now was as new to him as he was to Skids. "I'm just gonna—" He pointed in the direction of Scoop's coordinates.

"Of course. I hope you find your friend."

"Thanks."

Fully mindful of the fact the medic had told him he shouldn't transform, Skids transformed, because how bad could it be, right, and he was sure he knew better. Besides, it was going to take him a lot longer to get to the coordinates walking, and damned if he was going to waste any more time. 

It wasn't like it hurt to transform anyway, although the moment his tyres hit the ground he felt a weird, uncomfortable pressure in his fuel tank. Shrugging it off as energon sloshing against his new welds, Skids gunned his engines and peeled out down the street, tyres squealing as he dodged rubble. 

He pinged Getaway again, just in case, as he approached the given coordinates. There was still no reply, but since there was still static on the comms Skids was no more worried than he was before. Not about that anyway, since he'd arrived at evidence of much bigger problems, in the form of the giant footprints all over the ground and the absence of anything that remotely resembled a standing building amidst all the rubble. It chilled the energon in his lines. 

Transforming into his alt-mode mightn't have given him any pain, but changing back into his robot form hurt like the blazes and he groaned, clutching at his middle with one hand and at what was once a wall with his other. He felt like he was going to purge.

The feeling was compounded as he jerked his hand away from the wall with a curse when he saw the rusty splashes of dried energon on the wall, running down into a congealed puddle on the ground. Someone had died here. Not far away there's an impromptu morgue set up, and he doesn't recognise any of the dirty, exhausted mechs collecting corpses. 

"Excuse me," he hailed one of the mechs who'd just finished collecting what could best be described as... bits. Skids had seen enough insides become outsides to recognise it was originally a Cybertronian, but... he wondered if it had been one of the titans that had killed the mech, because even a combiner couldn't do that much damage. 

The mech was a neutral, and when he looked at Skids his optics were full of despair. "We just wanted to come home," he said in a voice that quivered with horror. "Your war was over and we just wanted to come home." He looked down at the energon stains on his hand and shuddered. "He just wanted to see Cybertron again. _Your war was over_." 

Another mech came over and put his arm around the other neutral's shoulders. "Sorry, he's in shock. Metroplex just seemed to come outta nowhere and we didn't have time to clear the area." He grimaced. "Can I help you, Autobot?"

It took Skids a moment to parse the scorn in the other mech's tone. He wanted to protest; this wasn't the war, the war was over, but he knew that this was as much a symptom as the symbol on his chest. No point, anyway. How could he justify anything to these mechs? After what they'd just been through? After the last four million years? 

"I'm looking for my friend," he said instead. "I was told he was last seen in this area."

"Your friend got a name?"

"Getaway. He's about this tall, blue and white and bits of pink—"

"Yeah, I seen him. He was up on what's left of the old Civic building helping look for bodies. Can't have been more than an hour ago."

Skids perked up immediately. If Getaway was looking for bodies he wasn't dead or badly injured or stomped on then! Things were looking up!

"Say, you don't look so good, guy. Your doc didn't do no good a job with all those holes in you." The mech cocked his head. "You aware you're leaking?"

Skids grinned at him. He didn't really care whether or not he was leaking. "I'll be fine, buddy. And hey, thanks!" he said and dashed off. He returned after a few seconds. "Sorry, which way is the Civic building?" When the mech pointed the way he dashed off again. 

Somehow, poking up out of the destruction on the corner of what was once the intersection of three wide streets was a signpost, pointing exactly towards the building he was looking for. 

It turned out the Civic building was the most destroyed of all the destroyed buildings in the street. Of course it was. He pinged Getaway again, automatically, and this time a passive echo came back to him. It was incredibly weak, but it was a response. Clearly whatever was jamming the comms either wasn't working here or he was close enough that it didn't matter. Who really cared though, he'd finally found Getaway. 

One hand pressed against the resurgence of pain from the ruptured patch, he clambered up the piled rubble in the direction the echo had come from. It was a passive echo through the static, so it was possible Getaway hadn't sensed his ping, but it assured Skids he was heading in the right direction. 

And there he was, sitting in what was left of the second floor, his head in his hands. Forgetting pain, forgetting everything at the sight of him—filthy and streaked with energon, but fully intact—

"Getaway!"

Getaway's head jerked up. "Oh, Primus," he said, his shoulders sagging with relief. "Skids, you're a sight for sore optics." And it wasn't what Skids meant to do, but when Getaway stood up Skids couldn't stop from flinging himself at the other mech, dragging him into a tight hug, his face pressed against Getaway's helm. Primus, he'd never been happier to see anyone alive before in his life.

At first Skids thought it must have been a system failure when he couldn't make himself let Getaway go—because surely this was exceeding the bounds of propriety to cling to the other mech like this—but there were no new errors blinking red on his HUD. His arms worked fine, so if not that, then maybe it was just him. And really, he told himself, you should let him go because enough is enough and no one wanted to be That Mech. 

Except Getaway wasn't trying to worm his way out of Skids's embarrassingly clingy hug. No fidgeting that it was too much, no unnatural stillness like he was willing it to be over. Instead Skids felt the soft vent of air against his cheek and then Getaway's arms slid around him in return. Perhaps he was imagining the way Getaway seemed to completely relax against him. 

"You're okay?" Getaway asked after a long, comfortable pause and Skids knew he really should feel grateful for him breaking the moment, because the unexpected intimacy in their embrace was playing merry hell with his feelings, giving him wildly inappropriate thoughts about maybe coaxing Getaway into retracting his facemask so Skids could kiss him stupid. 

To show his appreciation that Getaway was still alive, of course. Not for any other reason. Definitely not because he was—

"Yeah, I'm good." Now, anyway. When had he become so sentimental? "Are you—?"

"Yeah, I think I am, too. Now." Getaway's tone was a little shy and a little sheepish and Skids realised he wasn't the only sentimental idiot in this shell of a building. Before he could stop himself he was reaching up to rub away a sooty smear of energon on Getaway's facemask. 

There was a moment, when he heard the air catch in Getaway's vents, the way his optics widened at Skids's touch, that Skids thought that he could just lean in and—

Then Getaway was backing away, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Sorry," he said and Skids for the life of him couldn't figure out what he was apologising for. Or why his spark hurt at Getaway's apology. 

"S'okay," he said. "You just had a mark on your face, is all." He smiled, hoping that was enough to dispel the awkwardness that, up until now, had been kept completely at bay.

Getaway gave himself a little shake and then cocked his head, gesturing at himself. "Have you seen me? It's more than just a little mark. I'm gonna have to spend some serious time in the wash racks too—" He stopped, his optics narrowing as he scrutinised Skids. "So, tell me: if you're 'good', then what's all this?" Getaway gestured to the visible, now busted welds of Skids's wounds.

"Oh!" Skids said, trying not to look as shifty as he felt. "Um, well, Bludgeon was being a jerk about my skills and then he kind of stabbed me a little."

"He 'kind of stabbed you a little'?"

"Just a little around the middle area. First Aid said there wasn't much damage done," Skids added defensively as Getaway stared at him. "What? What are you looking at me like that for?"

Getaway shook his head. "You and the—the getting stabbed through the middle thing. It's a thing, you have a thing, and it's getting _stabbed_."

"I don't have a thing—"

"Twice, since we caught up on Luna 1, Skids. _Twice_. And all the times before that you don't remember and you don't like me talking about. Trust me, you really do have a thi—hey, are you okay?" 

Skids pressed his hand to the patch in his middle. He felt woozy all of a sudden, and light-headed. "I don't think I... _whoa_ —" His stagger was caught by Getaway sliding back in under his arm and taking Skid's weight, his optics worried. 

"C'mon, let's get you back to the medibay. What in Primus's name possessed you to come all the way out here with a repair like that, anyway?" he asked in exasperation.

"Dunno, just thought I'd check out the view," Skids said stupidly. He wasn't going to say 'you, I came all this way to find you, because I was scared and worried and you didn't come when I was hurt, and I thought you were dead, fragging hell, I really thought you might have been _dead_ ' because for all it was the truth, even in his head that sounded more than a little hysterical. 

"Does it hurt? D'you want me to run diagnostics?" Back on the _Lost Light_ and not long after he'd joined the crew, Getaway had explained about just a few of the special upgrades they'd been given by the Boss for their Spec Ops work (which had explained a lot to Skids about some of the unexpected gear he'd been sure he'd never had before his memory loss). One of the upgrades Getaway had received for their partnership had been a fairly decent quality medical scanner and when it came down to it, Skids could safely say he didn't really wonder why Getaway got one and he didn't anymore.

"No, I'm fine," Skids lied. "It doesn't hurt, I just—I feel a little dizzy, that's all."

"I worry about you sometimes," Getaway said. "The things you get yourself into when I'm not there to have your back. I knew I should've got in on Skywarp's teleport, somehow." He clicked at Skids and shook his head.

"Oh, really. 'Having my back' like me getting my arms pulled off even when you were there, hey?" Skids teased. 

Getaway jabbed him in the shoulder. "That's not my fault. I turned my back for one second, Skids. _One second_. Then I turn back and you're all 'Whoops, my arms came off, sorry!' Between that and this whole stabby thing you have going on—"

"Why d'you insist it's a—a thing?" Skids asked. His voice hitched a little as he tried to smother the pain, rerouting systems and suppressing diagnostic responses. He could tell by the look Getaway gave him that he wasn't fooled at all by Skids trying to pretend he was totally fine and in no pain at all, no really. 

Getaway rolled with it though, saying, "When it's happened more than half a dozen times now I think it's safe to say it's a thing."

"You're trying to tell me I've had this happened to me more than _six times_?" Skids stopped in his tracks.

"C'mon." Getaway coaxed him back into forward movement with gentle hands. "Sure it has. But this is the first time I've seen you stupid enough to bust your welds after." Skids let Getaway help him down a steep incline of rubble. "Why d'you think it never damaged anything major?"

Skids remembered First Aid's tone of incredulity and Ratchet's cynical laugh. "Because... we went to Ratchet and he reorganised my insides?"

This time it was Getaway's turn to stop and Skids stumbled to a halt. "You remember that?" Getaway whispered, and the quietly desperate hope in his tone was nearly overwhelming. 

Skids hated himself for having to crush that hope. "No," he said apologetically. "I just guessed from the way Ratchet wasn't surprised it wasn't a major injury. I'm sorry."

Getaway was still for a moment, before shaking his head. "There's nothing for you to be sorry about. It's not your fault, I know it's all gone I just can't wishing sometimes..." He rubbed his optics and then shrugged. "Oh well," he added brightly, "nothing we can do about it now."

But he was quiet as he again slipped in under Skids's arm, lending his strength for the walk back to the medibay. Skids wished he knew what to say to make Getaway feel better. Even though Getaway was very good at hiding it, Skids was apparently better than he thought at reading him and could tell the other mech hadn't yet stopped grieving for what he'd lost, all the things Skids would never know. 

It was easy for Skids in a way; he just had a hole in his brain and the cold comfort of knowing it could never be filled. It was strange, because there really was some comfort to that, in knowing for sure. He'd never wonder that way if or when those memories would return, and with what little he'd let Getaway tell him… well, he had some idea of who he'd been at least. 

And he knew who he was now. That was infinitely more important, right? 

But it didn't stop him wondering how much _Getaway_ had lost in all of this. He suspected it was more than he realised and he knew that even though they were friends now—best friends, he'd say; even after such a short time they'd clicked, and Skids didn't think it was just because they were close before—it couldn't replace everything that Getaway had lost. 

Primus, now he was making himself feel worse. "I'm glad you're okay," he blurted at Getaway. "I didn't come for the view, I came to find you."

Getaway tensed against his side a moment, and then relaxed. "No kidding," he said in a slow drawl and slanted a look at Skids as they shuffled down the mostly cleared road. 

"What?"

"Thank you." Getaway reached out and bomped his fist against Skids's chassis. 

They didn't speak again until they reached the medibay, but the silence was comfortable this time. Comforting. 

Scoop had moved on in the time Skids had been gone, as had the mech with the bad paintjob and there was a big black and red mech there instead. He looked vaguely familiar to Skids, and something about that familiarity made Skids feel like his paint was crawling. 

"I'm Flatline," the mech said. "I know why you're looking at me like that, even if you don't. I was a Decepticon, but I quit that life."

"Do you know what you're doing?" Skids asked. 

Flatline snorted. "Trained with Ratchet. I know what I'm talking about and yeah, I know what I'm doing." He studied the two of them. "You first and then him," he said, pointing at Skids and then Getaway. 

"Oh, I'm fine," Getaway said, holding his hands up. 

"Like slag you are," Flatline said. He scrutinised Skids. "You've already been here for a repair," he said accusingly. "Let me guess, you were told to take it easy and not to transform, but you did anyway because you know better than your medics, am I right?"

Skids winced. "It wasn't exactly like that—"

"Like hell it wasn't." Flatline rolled his optics. "Primus give me strength to deal with stupid slagging Autobots who think they're invincible and the patience not to show 'em they're not."

Skids and Getaway shared a look. "I like him, I think," Getaway said. "Puts you back in your box."

"Hey, you'll get yours too," the ex-Decepticon medic said ominously and Skids beamed at him. 

"Name?" 

"Uh, Skids. With an 's' on the end."

The medic turned to his console and punched some buttons. A short record appeared on the holographic screen—no doubt First Aid's notes from Skids's first visit. "Hmm," Flatline said. "A run in with Bludgeon. You're lucky you got away from him with only a hole through your middle."

"I had him, I was a second from—"

"You've already had one neural block for your first treatment," Flatline continued, completely ignoring Skids but to turn and run a diagnostics scanner over him. It tickled his EM field. "I'll have to give you another one to repair all this damage. It's generally not advisable this soon after the first, but I think in this situation it's warranted."

"No." 

The medic looked up from his scanner, surprised at Getaway confidently overriding him. He held up his hand, fidgeting awkwardly. "You shouldn't. Not with Skids. Just... take my word for it, okay? I can explain it later, if you want, just… he shouldn't have another one."

"But the pain," Flatline protested. "He's not only busted his patching, he's ruptured the welds in his fuel tank. That'll hurt to repair."

Skids opened his mouth to agree but Getaway turned to him earnestly, his fingers curled around Skids's forearm. "Do you trust me? You won't need another neural block, but you have to trust me."

"I—I just… I'm not a big fan of pain, buddy, never have been."

Then Getaway retracted his mask, and sure, Skids had always known he'd been to Ratchet back on the _Lost Light_ to have his face repaired after Star Saber short-tempered him when he was a guest of Chief Justice Tyrest and his mad doctor on Luna 1. But knowing was one thing and he'd never shown Skids what he looked like under the mask afterwards, and—

" _Oh_." In Skids's defence it wasn't just him making an utter fool out of himself and Flatline immediately glanced away too, as embarrassed as Skids at the inadvertent exclamation. If anything it made Skids feel better that it wasn't just him. And then he felt immediately protective and defensive that Getaway might be the medic's type. Old prejudices over Decepticons died hard. 

He resolutely ignored the pinch of jealousy that a medically-minded, former bad boy might be just as much Getaway's type too, because that didn't bear thinking about.

"Um." Getaway looked flustered by their responses before rallying. "Look," he said, and then he took Skids by the hands and okay, at least that was distracting Skids from staring at Getaway's face, right? (Not at all. Oh Primus, he was cute _and_ he was holding Skids's hands and if this was his way of making Skids forget about the pain, maybe he was onto something because Skids was almost completely distracted by this point.) 

"Trust me, okay? I know what to do to take the pain away... you just—you shouldn't have another neural block and I can explain that later too, all I need is for you to trust me and to trust that I know what I'm talking about now. Do you trust me?"

"I... do trust you."

And that was it, wasn't it: The thing he hadn't realised before this moment was that he trusted Getaway completely. He thought maybe he'd trusted Getaway right from the moment the other mech had shown up in that cell on Luna 1, which with anyone else should have spelled disaster like every other time he could remember trusting without thinking. But something had changed when he woke up in a ship made of Legislators and joined the _Lost Light_. Either his judgement had gotten better, or he'd finally met mechs loyal to their convictions. He suspected the latter. The crew were a good bunch. 

Getaway grinned and bomped Skids on the chin. "Good."

Skids couldn't help smiling dumbly back at him. Yeah, Getaway's face was a really good distraction—

"Fragging hell, would you look at that!" Skids lurched as Whirl barrelled into him, one arm wrapped around Skids's shoulder, jabbing at Getaway with his claw. "Look, Skids! I found him, he's right there!" He leaned forward, dragging Skids with him and Skids grunted in pain. "He's hot, Skids, did you notice?"

"I, uh, yeah, just a little," Skids wheezed, hands pressed against the patch. He could feel energon wet against his fingers as Flatline pried Whirl off him (he missed what the medic had to say to the other mech as he tried to vent through the pain), and then Getaway had him again, guiding him to a berth.

He expected it when Getaway encouraged him to lay down on his side to the medic would have access to work on him; he didn't expect it when Getaway boosted himself up on the berth too patting his lap. "Use me as a pillow," he said. 

"A pillow?" 

"Sure. This'd work better if you could lay on your back, but you can't so... put your head in my lap."

"Put my head in your lap?"

"You just gonna repeat everything I say? C'mon, come here—" and then Getaway was manhandling Skids over so he could rest his head in Getaway's lap. It... it was really nice. Skids felt kind of weird about just how nice he thought it was. 

"Are you comfortable?"

"Yeah, I guess. You're a better pillow than I thought and, I mean, I think I'm leaking energon everywhere which is kind of gross—"

Getaway laughed softly. "No, listen to the sound of my voice: are you comfortable?"

Skids scrunched his face up. 'Listen to the sound of my voice', what did that mean? "I told you," he said, perplexed. 

"C'mon, Skids, I know this is hard but you have to focus." Skids was startled when he felt Getaway's fingers curl around his, the soft stroke of his thumb across Skids's knuckles. "Are you comfortable?" Getaway asked again. 

Oh. "I...I am comfortable."

"Are you ready?"

"I am ready." The words were coming without thinking. 

"Do you trust me?"

"I do trust you." He trusted Getaway with everything. 

"Good," Getaway murmured, releasing his hand. "Now relax. I'm going to jack into your EM field so you might feel a little... y'know, at first. Don't worry, it's normal."

'A little... y'know'? What did that mean— _oh_. One leg giving a convulsive twitch was his only physical response as he felt Getaway's fingers settle on his helm and the sudden but gentle mesh of their EM fields where Getaway touched him, which sent a lightning sharp flash of feeling through him, like half a second of a mind-blowing overload, gone as quickly as it came. "Sorry," Getaway murmured. "It's a bit of a side effect. Are you okay?"

It felt like Getaway had his fingers right on Skids's brain module—but in a good way—as he gently stroked Skids's helm. His fingers moved in slow, steady repetitive movements, patterns... after a while Skids realised it was hard to concentrate on the patterns. It was hard to concentrate on anything. "Mnnrrgh," Skids said. 

"Of course you are," Getaway said indulgently, the movements on his lands lulling Skids into a near-recharge state. "Okay, Flatline, do your thing."

Flatline's response wasn't quite loud enough for Skids's lazy audials to pick up, but he felt a gentle pressure against the busted patch on his front. "Does that hurt?"

"Nnnuhh..." was all Skids could manage in response, his vocaliser about as responsive as every other one of his systems. He found he didn't care in the slightest. As long as Getaway kept doing what he was doing with his hands, Skids didn't really care about much of anything.

"This is incredible," Flatline said. "How do you do that? Does it work on anyone?" 

"Just Skids," Getaway said. Skids was probably just imagining the depth of affection in Getaway's tone, all caught up in the feeling like he'd dropped a tab of Fairy Floss from Brainstorm's secret stash of brain bending goodies. If he knew that a few pets of his helm would get him feeling like that he'd have never risked the brutal comedown (or any drug dreamt up by a weapons designer either, to be honest).

"It was something we came up with when he couldn't have anything for pain management. A certain pattern shuts off the pain receptors in his brain module. I can put him in full recharge too, if necessary."

"This is... this must be hypnotic suggestion. I must say, I've never seen it used so successfully. Why use a sledgehammer when you can use a soft touch."

The voices slowly faded to a background murmur and Skids found he couldn't even focus on the faintest of scratching around his wounds as the medic worked. And them he couldn't focus on being awake, and then he couldn't focus on anything at all, as his systems gently slid into stasis. 

-

Skids woke slowly and groggily, feeling the tingly ache of his self-repair working. He flailed around with his hand for a moment, looking for—nope, it was gone. He felt like he was missing something but couldn't figure out what. It took him a moment to place where he was, and longer to figure out why he was there. 

"Hey, Skids!" a voice said brightly from his left and he turned his head, rebooting his optics to try and speed up focussing on the little red and white blur. 

"Swerve!" he said. "What are you doing here? Are you okay? Is everyone okay?"

"I'm okay! Everyone's okay! You're even okay!" the minibot said cheerfully. "Even everyone who as the Crystal City is okay—well, except for Bumblebee. And—and, y'know, it doesn't matter right now. We're all okay."

"How did you know I was here?"

"You think I wouldn't know whew my best friend is? Skids, come on." He shrugged. "Anyway, Getaway commed me to come and look after your sorry aft. His words. Not mine. Really."

Getaway. That was who he was missing. Slag, that was the second time he'd forgotten, and that thought makes his spark give a sick lurch. What if this was a thing? What if this was a side-effect of the nudge gun? What if he was forgetting the only thing he'd been able to remember?

"You okay? D'you need me to get someone?"

Skids scrubbed a hand over his face and then shook his head. "No, I'm—I'm okay. Why would Getaway have commed you?"

"Uh, because he's your best friend and I'm your best friend and best friends of best friends stick together to make sure their best friend is okay?"

Skids squinted as he worked his way through the actually impeccable Swerve-logic of that. "Okay," he said. "Wait, where's Getaway?"

"Flatline is looking after him."

It was completely instinctive the way Skids rolled off the berth and came up half a second from getting his guns out. _All_ his guns. Yeah, he could bet Flatline was 'looking after' Getaway. 

Well, his intention was for it to be a completely instinctive roll off the berth, but expectations and reality weren't operating on the same plane at that moment. Skids crashed heavily to the floor, completely forgetting the cables jacked into him while he was offline to monitor his vitals, and the inability of the servos in his legs to cope with sudden movement in his less-than-100%-state. 

There wasn't even a chance for him to think about getting his guns out. 

"Um," Swerve said. "You okay down there? You haven't hurt yourself again, have you? Flatline's—okay, I know he used to be a Decepticon and all that but he fixed you up good, so Getaway's in good hands—"

Skids staggered to his feet. "I'm fine," he said, shaking his head groggily. He carefully unplugged the cables, resolutely trying not to think about a Getaway being in anyone's hands. Anyway, even if... even if it was like that and not just, y'know, Getaway getting actual medical treatment for what ailed him, what right did Skids have to get all up in arms about it? Getaway wasn't his. 

No, Getaway wasn't his. But… but, and he wasn't sure, but maybe Skids thought he might want Getaway to be—

"He's just getting treated, buddy," Swerve said, the sudden comprehension on his face setting Skids's fuel tanks churning. "You... you're jealous." He pointed at Skids, optics widening. "You're _jealous_. You think Getaway and Flatline are—"

"Shut up, I don't think they're anything."

"You _do_ , you're actually visibly seething, this is amazing. Like, we all knew he was completely gone on you the moment he showed up on Luna 1, but you—"

"What?"

"You didn't notice? Buddy, I know you're scrap at matters of the spark and all that, but listen to your ol' buddy Swerve here. That bot has got it and he's got it bad. For you," Swerve added like it wasn't obvious. 

Skids frowned, running through their interactions in his head. No, there was nothing that indicated that Getaway thought of him as anything but a friend. Sure, Skids might be jealous—and he could admit to that to himself, at least—but there was nothing to say it was anything other than one sided. "Who is this 'we'?" he asked suspiciously. 

"Y'know, me and Tailgate and Brainstorm and Whirl and Rung and—"

"Rung!" Skids exclaimed. 

"Well, maybe not Rung, but I'm sure he would've if he didn't say something about not involving himself in cheap gossip. You think he didn't say nothing because patient-doctor confidentiality? 'Cause I mean, Getaway's his patient over the whole torture by Tyrest and Star Saber stuff, right? So we don't have another Fort Max situation? I totally reckon Getaway would've told him then."

Skids shook his head. Tailgate? He'd spent the whole time recovering from his brush with cybercrosis, how did he even remember who Getaway was? And Brainstorm was... well, he wasn't the most reliable when it came to feelings, and as for Whirl...! No, if Getaway was 'gone' on Skids as Swerve thought, then he was fiercely circumspect about it, which made Skids doubt it was a thing. 

He was just... enthusiastic about everything. And affectionate. Friendly. That's all.

Skids wasn't quite prepared for how sad that thought made him. He wanted Getaway to like him, it turned out. A lot.

He thought about the way it had almost been like Getaway had melted into his embrace in the Civic building, but that could be explained away as relief that they were both alive. The gentle sweep of his thumb against Skids's hand was him trying to get Skids to relax so the hypnosis would take. And he'd obviously thought Skids was coming onto him when Skids had gone to wipe the energon off his facemask if his recoil and apology meant anything. 

"He's just a friend. That's how I see him and how he sees me," Skids said firmly. "There's nothing else to it."

"Uh-huh," Swerve said sceptically. "And that's why we've all placed bets on how long it'd take you to see what was right under your nose." He scowled. "Brainstorm is going to be unbearable now, why couldn't you have waited at least another month?"

"I don't—I'm not—! And _he_ certainly isn't—"

"Heh, 'course not, Skids. Here he comes now, y'know, you could ask him or, oh! _I_ could—"

"Don't you dare say a thing," Skids hissed, turning as Getaway came back into the ward. He'd been cleaned up, but tottered a little as he walked. Skids scowled when he saw the solicitous hand Flatline had under Getaway's elbow but fought off the urge to bolt over there and slap Flatline down. Did Skids imagine Flatline's hands lingered a little? Primus, he had to stop this before he drove himself mad. This was why he didn't do feelings. Feelings lead to irrationality, and if there was one thing Skids refused to be it was irrational. 

Getaway's optics brightened when he saw Skids. "You look better," he said happily, staggering towards him, hands out for balance. Skids caught him by the forearms and steadied him against the medical berth he was leaning against himself. 

"And you don't, you look worse. What's wrong?"

"Turns out I had Ammonite contaminants in my lines," Getaway said and Skids immediately felt a good sixty per cent less jealous. Having your fuel lines flushed for contaminants was not the kind of thing that brought on the romance. It was messy and painful and undignified. It was even worse than a low-grade hangover. 

"First Aid will be here shortly to discharge you both and provide care instructions that you should listen to this time," Flatline said, looking pointedly at Skids. Then he turned to Getaway, fidgeting a moment before blurting out, "And, uh, yeah, so if you wanted to get that drink some time. Uh. When Maccadam's is open again, obviously. It'd be great! Let me know?" 

Urgh, Skids knew it. He looked away, and caught Swerve's gaze. The minibot rolled his optics behind Flatline's back, before sending Skids a sharp, fast comm on his private frequency: _He'll turn the Decepticon down, don't worry._

"Oh, yeah, I… I'll let you know. When Maccadam's is open again."

The medic looked pleased with that as he made his farewells before returning to the job he was meant to be doing that had nothing at all to do with manhandling Getaway or asking him out on dates. Getaway, who shuffled a little closer to Skids and leaned in against him. He looked thoroughly done with the day and which was something Skids could totally relate to. 

It was Swerve who saved Skids from any awkwardness of having to ask about the dreaded 'drink'. "Are you really going to go drinking with him?" he demanded, fists on his hips. Turned out he really didn't see Getaway not turning it down coming. "You know he's just after One Thing from you. _One Thing_."

"He's—Swerve, he's not after anything, he was just asking to be friendly. I mean, I go to your bar all the time for a friendly drink with—with Skids here, doesn't mean I'm after anything, does it?" Getaway said defensively. 

Oh, ouch. 

When Swerve opened his mouth to retort, Skids pinged him frantically. "It's okay," Skids said pointedly, because he could see exactly where this trainwreck was going, and hell, if that wasn't a declaration of a complete lack of interest, he didn't know what was. "You can do whatever you want."

He didn't take it personally. There was no point, after all, where he'd thought this could possibly happen. Didn't stop the jump of his spark when he slung his arm around Getaway's shoulders Getaway pressed in closer against his side. He wondered if it was creepy now for him to be as physically affectionate as he was before knowing that now there were feelings—acknowledged feelings—behind his actions, making him feel dishonest, like he was taking something he wasn't entitled to. 

He didn't get to follow that train of thought too far, because First Aid bustled in. He frowned when he saw Skids, taking the datapad Flatline handed him and scrolling through it. "I suppose you had good enough reason," he said without preamble or explanation, his gaze flicking to Getaway, still tucked against Skids's side. He scrolled through the datapad a bit more. "Okay, this goes for the both of you: no transforming and _no_ overloads—I know the temptation to celebrate being alive is there after the whole 'surviving the end of the universe' thing, but I also know how enthusiastic you warrior-types can get when you're swapping paint and you'll just do yourself more damage. Give it a day for everything to settle down and your self-repair to do it's work and... What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Skids glanced at Getaway and then back at First Aid. "Uh, buddy," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "we're not—I mean, we don't swap paint, we're, uh... we're just friends."

First Aid gave him a long, utterly sceptical look, and then eyeballed Getaway with the same. "Uh-huh," he said slowly. The 'yeah, Skids, sure you're just _friends_ ' was very heavily implied in his tone, which Skids thought was distinctly unfair. 

"Rest," First Aid said firmly, "is what you need most. Rest and a full recharge. In my capacity as Acting CMO of the _Lost Light_ , I'm restricting you both to R&R for the next day. If I hear either of you have been out and about or—or bar hopping," and this time he scowled at Swerve who was doing his best to look very innocent and not at all like a bar-running bad influence, "you're going to have to face Ratchet about this and you know he'll be a lot meaner than I will be."

"Ratchet likes me," Getaway said, before adding hastily as First Aid scowled at him, "but that doesn't mean we won't stick to the docs orders and rest and recharge."

"Ratchet _likes_ you?" Swerve asked after they left the medibay, heading towards where the _Lost Light_ was docked and undergoing repairs. 

"You mean he doesn't like you?"

"He has a drinking problem, and his drinking problem is that he thinks my cups are too small. Anyway," and Swerve made finger guns at them, "doctor's orders say you guys gotta get back to your bunks for a rest, so I'll bring something special by for you later."

"First Aid said—"

"'Course he did, but is it bar hopping if you're in your own hab suite? Just asking questions." 

"Ration energon only," Skids said firmly. "I appreciate you want to help out, Swerve, but I am not going to make another medic angry at me today for not doing what I was told."

"I always want to help out, Skids," Swerve said with a pointed look and a grin before sauntering off. 

"What was that about?" Getaway asked, confused, as he palmed open the door to their hab suite.

"That was about nothing," Skids said firmly, heading for his berth. "Nothing at all."

-

Skids stirred some time later, his internal chronometer telling him no more than a few hours had passed. He was aware of the change in the background noise in the room, the lack of a double barrelled hum, which meant that Getaway's recharge berth was on the fritz again. 

He pinged Getaway softly, below the threshold he'd register if he was in recharge, just in case. "Mm?" He heard Getaway say tiredly in the darkness. 

"You want to come share with me? Your berth is fritzing again." 

There wasn't an answer, but the shift and scrape of Getaway climbing off his berth and shuffling across to Skids's double berth gave answer enough. Skids shuffled over to make room and he could see the light from Getaway's optics as he slid in close.

This was nothing unusual he told himself firmly as he felt Getaway curl against him, one arm wrapping around his waist. They did this all the time when the recharge setting on Getaway's berth was malfunctioning. He'd never felt jittery about it before, so there was no reason he should now. No shiny new revelation of feelings should make such a difference. 

"Better?" He said, hating himself a little for the pleased kick to his spark when Getaway made a burred noise of agreement in the back of his vocaliser, his fingers hooking over the edge of one of Skids's body panels like he needed an anchor. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been stomped by a combiner. Flatline said I would though, but he also said I'd feel a lot better tomorrow."

Flatline. Urgh. Heroically, Skids kept the distaste out of his tone as he said, "Soooo," and he didn't mean to draw out the vowel, not really, "about you and Flatline. I think you'll—I think you'll—" He couldn't do it. He couldn't say _I think you'll be happy together_ and genuinely mean it because it was stupid, because he didn't mean it, because he was clearly the superior choice here. "Be. Happy," he finally managed. "Together."

Great. Now he was thinking about Getaway and Flatline. Together. The thought of the so-called _ex_ -Decepticon's hands on Getaway in a decidedly unprofessional manner, making electricity dance across his plating as they interfaced. Skids exhaled angrily. 

"Skids, there's no 'me and Flatline'," Getaway said kindly. "He's nice and everything, but he's not my type."

There was a long silence as Skids struggled not to drown in a flood of relief. "Oh," he said. "Good."

"Good?" Now Getaway sounded amused. He clicked to bring up the lights—which was a stupid Brainstorm invention and Skids hated it because he couldn't click in the right tones to get this gentle lighting like Getaway did right now, shifting so he was propped up on his elbow. There was just enough light for Skids to see Getaway had retracted his mask and to see the smile curving his mouth. Skids found himself being studied in the low light and fought both not to fidget under the scrutiny and not to stare at Getaway like he'd never seen a pretty face before. "Why 'good'?"

"Uh... I worry about you, is all. You're one of my best friends, I didn't like the vibe I got from that guy," Skids said hastily. "Don't want to see you get hurt."

Getaway's smile widened. "Uh-huh." 

Scrambling desperately for a change of subject, Skids pointed to Getaway's face. "What about that, anyway?" he said, in his most awkward change of topic ever. "I mean, Ratchet fixed you months ago, but you haven't, y'know, before now. Have you?" he added, suddenly wondering if maybe he's just the last one to see Getaway's face. 

"I haven't. I don't know why," Getaway admits. "I guess I'm just used to having the mask. I'm not very good at... hiding my expressions—never have been—but this just makes it a bit easier for me. Y'know, which is a good thing for a secret agent and all that. Being unreadable."

"I've never had any real problems reading you, though?" Skids said perplexed. He really hadn't. Between changes to body language and optic shape, he'd been able to pick up on Getaway's mood nine times out of ten.

"Yeah, but that's you, Skids," Getaway said like it was obvious. "Other people don't. But seriously, without the mask I'd never be able to hide anything from anyone. Go on, ask me the hardest question you can think of. Ask me anything."

"Anything?" Skids frowned. Obviously what Swerve had said earlier must have been percolating in his brain, because normally he wouldn't be so stupid, not to mention he probably wouldn't have even thought of the question otherwise. "Before I deleted my brain, were you… were you in love with me?"

The response from Getaway was immediate. He recoiled like he'd been struck, optics wide, and it was true: one look at his face gave Skids every answer he needed. He didn't expect Getaway to try and bail on him, though, pushing off the berth and bolting for the door. Skids scrambled after him. "Wait... _wait_..."

Getaway stopped a few steps from the door, shoulders hunched, the whirr of his fans loud in the quiet hab suite. He flinched at Skids's hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," Skids said. "I'm not angry with you for not saying anything." Then suddenly it became clear to Skids, and he couldn't understand why it had taken him so long to realise why Getaway's name was the only thing he could remember. "I... was in love with you, too. Wasn't I? I was. I'm sure I was. I had to be. Getaway, why didn't you _say_ anything?"

Getaway turned slowly. He hadn't bothered to close his mask again, and Skids could see from his face that it was all true.

"And how would that have looked if I'd told you?" he said miserably. "'Hey, just so you know, before you deleted your brain we were in a secret, dangerous relationship that only we knew about because we're both idiots incapable of denying our feelings, and so routinely and repeatedly endangered ourselves and others'? How d'you think that would have made you feel? You couldn't even remember me, much less any of that and I didn't want you to feel... obliged. I might've still felt everything, but you didn't. And it gave you a chance for a new start without that hanging over whatever friendship we might have been able to salvage." Getaway raised his chin, face resolute. "Besides, we both knew that one or both of us using the nudge guns might have been necessary going into the mission. That's why we promised to never to say anything about us if we did."

Skids could see the logic behind that, knew he would have agreed to it in a heartbeat, but Primus, it didn't stop his spark aching for Getaway. "You watched me escape, knowing you'd be tortured and—"

"And nothing. I was happy to know you'd escaped. That's all I needed. They could do anything to me after that, none of it mattered."

"But that's... why would you even say that?"

"Love is a stupid thing, Skids. It's a very stupid thing that makes us just as weak as it does strong. You'd escaped in the Legislator ship and I knew you would've followed the Boss's directive to the letter because you were always a good soldier and a better agent. After that I had nothing left to lose. Rung says that's why I lasted so long without confessing in the first place, and probably why I broke when I found out they'd captured you."

Skids didn't even know how to deal with the levels of sheer matter-of-fact in Getaway's tone. Not in any kind of rational way, anyway. Instead he reached out and cupped Getaways face in his hands, leaning forward to press their mouths together in a soft kiss. 

It lasted only a moment before Getaway was pushing Skids away. "Don't," he said and it was the first time Skids could remember ever seeing Getaway angry. "Don't kiss me because you pity me. I don't want it and I don't need it—"

"I—what— _No_." Skids shook his head. "I don't pity you—I mean, I feel sympathy for you, but not in the way you're thinking, and it's sure as hell not why I kissed you. Primus, Getaway, I'm not going to apologise for feeling like this. Everything you've been through since we went after Tyrest... you're still one of my best friends, why can't I hurt for you?"

The defensive anger was gone as quickly as it came and Getaway rubbed tiredly at his optics with the heels of his hands. 

"C'mon," Skids said, holding out his hand. "Come here." He felt nothing but relief when, after an agonisingly long moment, Getaway stepped forward and let Skids pull him close, guiding him back to the berth where he sat down, Getaway beside him. 

"I'm sorry—"

" _No_ , don't ever apologise to me, buddy. Not for this." Skids reached out and took Getaway's hand as they sat there in the quiet, the only sound the hum of the berth beneath them. Skids didn't know what to think, how to feel. Swerve had been right then, when he'd said that Getaway was gone on him since Luna 1, though the minibot hadn't been close to understanding the scope of it.

And now Skids had no idea what to do about it. Today had shown him his own feelings weren't just that of friends as he'd always thought, but he didn't know what to say to the other mech. How to put it in words. How to make sure Getaway knew he was for real, and not just saying it because of a past that Skids couldn't remember. It was one thing to be physically attracted to him—because Skids was, holy slag, he really was, but Getaway had never once responded to the same overtures that had never failed to nab Skids a berth partner with any of the rest of the _Lost Light_ crew. 

He'd never been able to tell if Getaway was just oblivious or genuinely disinterested in swapping paint with him and after a while he'd stopped trying to initiate a casual thing. Getaway had become a good friend, and Skids managed to put his attraction aside. Everyone needed to have the one who got away, he'd told himself. He was spoilt for choice as is.

But this was different. This wasn't just trying to get someone into his berth, this was _feelings_.

"So, if you didn't kiss me out of pity, why did you do it?" Getaway asked. Skids glanced at him and even though he was excellent at reading Getaway's feelings even when masked, this time the other mech held himself so still Skids couldn't read a thing into it. 

Except that Getaway clearly didn't want Skids to know what he was thinking. 

Skids vented softly. Well, this was it. Now or never. "Because... because I think I'm in love with you."

The words hung in the air, a confession he couldn't take back. Not that he wanted to.

"Oh," Getaway said eventually.

Oh? Skids confessed his feelings and all he got in return was _oh_? He suddenly wondered if he'd made a terrible decision. If Getaway's feelings had faded since he came back because there wasn't any hope. What if he loved Getaway now and Getaway didn't love him anymore? What if he'd just confessed this and it made everything awkward? What if he'd just stuffed up their friendship? What if—

"You're thinking too hard," Getaway said, squeezing Skids's hand. "I can hear you."

"Yeah, because you said 'oh'. I tell you I love you and all you have to say is 'oh'?" Skids blurted, feeling panic bubbling up in him for the second time that day. He'd much rather the earlier kind of panic. Fear was so much easier to work with when it didn't risk your spark being stomped on.

"I just... I don't know what to say." Getaway threw his hands in the air. "I don't know how to feel! I've spent all this time trying to stop my own feelings because they weren't appropriate anymore because you didn't remember a thing and now you're all 'oh, by the way'... You've got to understand that I lost everything and now—now you're telling me I can have it all back. I can't tell if this is some kind of cruel joke by Primus, or..."

That was when Skids realised he wasn't the most scared mech in the room. "I don't know about Primus's comedic skills, but I'm not joking," he said. "I wouldn't joke about this or you or—or us, if you want there to be an us—"

"Of course I want there to be an us!"

"Well... good," Skids said. "Because so do I."

"Good," Getaway echoed. Then he glanced at Skids. "...Um. So, now what?"

Skids had never been in this situation before, so he wasn't sure if his mind going directly to the gutter was appropriate, but he knew what he wanted to be 'now what'. Given First Aid had told them pretty firmly overloading was off the menu, though, he couldn't spend the remainder of their enforced rest period taking Getaway apart over and over until he overloaded so hard he fried his circuits like he wanted to. Skids could almost feel the crackle of electricity between them, his EM field pulsing gently. He mightn't remember ever having anything with Getaway, but it was clear that his body did. Explained why his spark went all fluttery every time Getaway touched him since he'd had his grand revelation, he guessed. Probably relieved his brain module had finally caught up. 

Getaway might talk about how his own face was as readable as a datapad, but it's got nothing on the way he must be able to read Skids, and the blue of his optics deepens in response. "We can't," Getaway said. "First Aid said so. I might be able to get away with a repeat visit to the medibay but Flatline, First Aid _and_ Ratchet would kill you if you went back a third time."

"I know, but I kind of don't really care," Skids said. "There's more we can do than just the berth rattling First Aid implied to overload."

Getaway caught his lip between his dental plates. "No," he said. "We shouldn't. I just got you back, Skids, I can't risk an irate doctor putting a wrench through your helm."

"No one would seriously kill me," Skids said. "...Would they?" He could see the yearning on Getaway's face, could feel it in his EM field where it brushed against Skids's. He wished he'd been _better_ against Bludgeon, that he'd been able to rise to the occasion and not to the taunting, because then he wouldn't have this stupid hole through the middle of his guts and Getaway reluctant to touch him because of it. 

But then again, Getaway had been contaminated by fighting the Ammonites, so even if Skids had managed to keep himself intact, there was still that. Skids sighed. "Come on then, we should recharge. Doctor's orders." Skids curled an arm around Getaway and tugged him down so he was the little spoon. Getaway made a soft, pleased noise at the action and once again Skids felt his spark jump in response. Primus, he had it bad. He couldn't figure out if it was weird or not to feel this way. Maybe it wasn't. 

In Skids's defence, he did try to force himself back into recharge, but the hum of Getaway's EM field buzzing against his, a soft echo of that yearning that he was now attuned to, stopped him from slipping offline. He vented softly, shifting restlessly, unable to help it as his hands slowly inched over Getaway's body, his fingers trailing soft static that arced between their EM fields. 

He slipped his fingers between two plates of armour that flexed as Getaway leaned back into him with a sigh, engine purring softly as Skids stroked the sensitive protoform body hidden beneath the sturdy armour. 

"Oh, you like that," Skids said. He'd never imagined Getaway would be so responsive. "For someone whose vocaliser was saying no, your body sure is saying yes," he added when Getaway's hand curved over his so he couldn't move it away even if he'd wanted to. 

"Shut up. Could never say no to you. Never wanted to."

"No, you can, you can always say no to me," Skids said, removing his hand. "If you want to wait I will too—"

"Oh no, you stop touching me now and I'll make you wish Bludgeon had done a far more thorough job." Getaway shifted in Skids's arms until he could look Skids in the eye, and Skids's fans clicked on as heat flooded through him at the desire on Getaway's face. 

Covering his own sudden spike of lust with a laugh, he said, "You say the sweetest things." He was expecting to be the one to take charge—he wasn't sure why, maybe because he did with all his other berth partners—so he was surprised when it was Getaway who pushed him flat onto his back, sliding over him. 

Clearly he had no misgivings and Skids was glad. This felt right. This felt like body memory as he wrapped his arms around Getaway and kissed him back. His memory might have had great gaping holes in it, but his EM field sang in response to something it knew intimately. And then Getaway set about proving that he knew it—and every sweet spot on Skids's body—intimately. 

In only seconds, with a few well-placed touches and strokes, Getaway took Skids from merely feeling in the mood to engines revving with need. 

"We should jack in," Skids said, the whine of need winding through his vocaliser. "Less paint swapped that way. No dents. Don't want to upset the medics." It was a more intimate interface too, but there was no way Skids was thinking with that level of subtlety as Getaway tweaked a particularly sensitive wire that made Skids shudder under him. 

All he was thinking about was turning the tables, wasting no time at all sliding his jack into Getaway's bared interface port. 

Getaway might know exactly what buttons of Skids's to push for the best result, but Skids had experience and a collection of interface codes he knew could drive a mech wild. Incomprehensible data packets could fully synchronise their EM fields and Skids could tell that he and Getaway weren't far from there to start with. 

Skids never lacked for skills to turn his berth-mate into a quivering mess of need mech, and Getaway was no exception as Skids sent through a particularly explicit fragment of code. Getaway cursed, his own jack slipping from his shaking hand as his EM field flared. "You want more?" Skids asked archly, sending another pulse of code through the connection. It was like magic, the way Getaway shuddered and grabbed at him. 

"I forgot just how evil you can be," Getaway managed, head rolling back and a blissed out look in his optics. "I love it."

Skids grinned and reached up, curling his hand around the back of Getaway's helm to draw him in for another deep kiss. It was his own confidence in the situation that undid him, however, as he pulled Getaway closer and Getaway, not as completely gone as Skids had thought, managed to slide his jack into Skids's interface port with the forward motion. 

The sudden completion of the link sent a glorious stab of feedback right through the centre of his brain module and he gasped, clinging desperately to Getaway as all his senses were assaulted as all the pleasure he'd given Getaway was magnified and pushed back through the connection into him.

But Getaway wasn't finished. He punched through all Skids's firewalls like they were tissue paper with a simple piece of nonsense code, tailored specifically to Skids's EM field, just as he slid his fingers under Skids's chassis to ultra-sensitive spots Skids didn't even realise he had. 

Skids keened, his vocaliser trailing off into static as he arched underneath Getaway, clutching at him. He needed an anchor in the flood of sensation, his fans screaming as they tried to regulate his temperature. He could feel Getaway in every sense and sensor, electricity dancing in the tiny gaps between their bodies, blue static skittering across heated armoured plating. The build of the energy buzzing through his frame, the frantic flutter of his spark in a casing that felt too small... he hadn't felt an overload build like this in a long time, making him feel heavy and hot and desperate. 

"Come on," Getaway murmured against his mouth, a breath under his armour, a whisper inside his head, "come with me."

The only thing Skids could manage to do before the wave of overload crested and crashed down on him was reach out with his EM field and mesh it tightly with Getaway's to take Getaway with him. Helpless, and with all his sensors lit up white hot, his systems crashed in a cascading failure. 

He was only offline for a few moments and when he rebooted, armour pinging softly as it cooled, the bite of ozone in the air, Getaway was sprawled beside him looking both thoroughly smug and completely fragged out. Skids groaned, ignoring all the warnings and alerts on his HUD in favour of stretching luxuriously. His fans still buzzed furiously, trying to bring his core temperature down to a safe level. 

"You're a monster," he said, reaching out and catching up Getaway's stupid talented fingers and bringing them to his lips for a kiss. "I can't remember the last time I overloaded so hard I offlined."

Getaway shifted his hand so he was cupping Skids's face. "Nor can I," he admitted. No wonder he looked smug. 

"You mean you never...?"

"I never," Getaway said and Skids laughed and drew him back down for a long, lazy kiss. It was easy to tangle around each other, and Skids wondered why they'd never done this before, even before the whole feelings thing—

Oh, right. Yeah, that. 

Well, the feelings thing was sorted out at least (and he still had a silly flutter of joy in his spark at the thought of it), so Skids felt zero guilt as he slid his hands down Getaway's back and over the curve of his aft, hitching him closer. Getaway had unplugged them both while Skids had been offline and Skids kind of missed the feel of Getaway inside his head. Later, he told himself. They could do this again later, this was a thing they could have whenever they wanted. 

"I missed you," Getaway said. 

"Am I still the same person as the one you missed though?" Skids asked quietly. He didn't want to say it had been weighing on him, but Getaway's words reminded him that it was something he'd wondered about when Getaway joined the _Lost Light_ crew and seemed insistent they were still friends.

Getaway pulled back a little, studying Skids's face a moment. This time it was easy to hold his gaze. "I've watched you since Tyrest. You might've forgotten everything about us and what we'd been through, but in here," he tapped Skids's helm, "and in here," this time he splayed his hand over where Skids's spark rested in his chest, "you're the same Skids I've always known. But this—us, together—I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't missed it."

"Even if love is a stupid thing that makes us weak?"

"Even if," Getaway agreed mildly, not rising to Skids's taunt. "I know you'll probably think it's weird, but I… I don't think I'd have this any other way. Too many variables. And you're happier like this. I like that."

It surprised Skids how relieved that made him. Knowing Getaway wasn't secretly wishing that he could turn the clock back with the way Getaway would look at him sometimes. He understood those looks better now. 

"By the way," Skids said. "This isn't going to be something just we know about. I don't want to to hide us from everyone like you said we did before." 

Getaway looked anxious. "Skids—" he started to say, shifting uncertainly.

"No, look," Skids said, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "I've watched _you_ since Tyrest. You're gonna say something about 'the Boss' and about our jobs or something and… the war is over, Getaway. We don't need to be that anymore, what did you call it? Spec Ops. 'The Wreckers done right.' And frankly, from what I've seen and heard of this Prowl guy, he seems like a complete jerk. I don't want to work for that. And I sure as hell don't want to pretend that we're just friends." He snorted. "Not like anyone'd believe it anyway. First Aid already thought we were—we were _bomping_ ," and he shoved Getaway's shoulder when the other mech snorted and grinned at him, "oh, shut up. You know what I mean. And the other guys—Swerve and Brainstorm and all them—they were actually betting on us."

"Who won?" Getaway seemed unsurprised.

"Brainstorm. Swerve wasn't happy. Wanted to know why I couldn't have waited another month so he could clean up."

Getaway rolled over and looked at Skids speculatively. "We could pretend for a month, then." Skids blinked. "Wouldn't do to have the bartender grumpy with us," Getaway added lightly. 

Skids grinned, ducking down to kiss Getaway thoroughly. Maybe instead of leaving another overload for later, they could do it now, he thought, just as his HUD started returning the damage report from his offlining overload. 

"Skids...?" Getaway said, when Skids stopped kissing him. "You okay?"

Apart from a few errors from half a dozen fried systems he wouldn't need to bother a medic with—they all had access to secret stashes of fuses and circuits most vulnerable to and overload—there was a small, stubborn warning that refused to resolve itself in the bottom left on his vision. Uh-oh, he thought as he tried to reboot the system. The error persisted. 

He suddenly became aware of Getaway prodding at him. "What's wrong?" Getaway asked.

"Huh?"

"You stopped with the kissing and now you're making 'this energon tastes like pit waste' face," Getaway said. "What's wrong?"

"I'm… I am gonna be in so much trouble."

"Why? What's happened?" Getaway's hand went immediately to the patch at Skids's middle, still fully intact. It was difficult not to shiver at his probing fingers, now Skids knew intimately what those fingers were capable of. "This feels okay…? How about your back?"

"No, the welds are okay, but… hang on—" Then Skids groaned as the extent of the damage came clear, burying his face in his hands. "The overload fried my self-repair. First Aid is going to _kill_ me."

Getaway laughed at him.


End file.
